“A man with one theory is lost. He must have several, four, many! " —Bertold Brecht

An Ambitious Undertaking

The Boston Philosophy Meetup has been meeting for years and reading through the Western philosophy in roughly chronological order starting with the Presocratics. They are in the process of wrapping up the nineteenth century with Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. They asked me to help draft an outline of twentieth century philosophy to use a basic guide to the next several years reading. It is quite a plan. I’m sure we won’t follow it exactly. There will be additions, deviations and we will perhaps skip some things that don’t inspire or interest the group. However, the group has been at this for years and has already worked their way through Locke’s Essays on Human Understanding, Hegel’s Phenomenology and Marx’s Capital. This is a dedicated group with a strong commitment to reading the great works of philosophy no matter the length or difficulty. As long and difficult as this list may prove to be I think there is a reasonable chance we’ll get through much of it. And even if we don’t it will be quite an adventure.

Also, we do a meeting by Skype chat every other week so if anyone is is interested you can join in from anywhere in the world (with a reasonable internet connection).

Oliver Wendell Holmes
“Lecture I; Early Forms of Liability” and “Lecture III: Torts—Trespass and
Negligence” in The Common Law (1881)
from “Privilege, Malice, and Intent” (1894)
“The Path of Law” (1897)
from “Ideals and Doubts” (1915)
from Abrams v. United States (1919)

Jane Adams
from “A Function of the Social Settlement” (1899)

George Herbert Mead
“The Mechanism of Social Consciousness” (1912)
“A Contrast of Individualistic and Social Theories of the Self” (c. 1927)